I am preparing for a job interview and I have been reading about the STAR method interview questions. I understand that it stands for Situation, Task, Action, and Result. Can you give me some tips on how to answer STAR interview questions?
Here are some specific examples of STAR interview questions that I am preparing for:
Tell me about a time when you had to deal with a difficult coworker or team member.
Describe a project or task that required you to work under pressure or tight deadlines.
Tell me about a time when you had to solve a complex problem.
Describe a situation where you had to take the lead and guide a team or project to success.
I would appreciate any tips that you can give me. Thank you!
So the star method is a way to format your answers during the behavior interview so you don’t go on rambling about the wrong things.
The goal is to keep your answers short and sweet to the point.
Briefly explain the situation, talk about the action steps you took and the end result.
Basically these questions are designed to see if you have good conflict resolution skills, good communication skills, and are able to work well on a team.
At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if you are a great developer, if you can’t function well on a team, then you are a liability and the company doesn’t want to deal with that.
So they try to use these questions as a way to see a glimpse into how you would be to work with and if you are a good fit in their organization.
In my experience most of my interviews started with the behavioral interview before moving to the technical interview.
I have been asked all of these questions.
So you want to be prepared and already have examples in mind that you can talk about.
Don’t feel like you need to read from a script or anything because that could be offputting to an interviewer.
But don’t be surprised if any of these questions come up.